Sips of Blood

by Mary Ann Mitchell

Marie's features hardened; the soft matron had disappeared. In her place stood a crazed witch contemplating how to cook her prey.

  "Don't fear him." Her voice turned low. "Destroy him."

  "I can't kill a man."

  "He's already dead. Dead to virtue, to sanity, to love, and to contriteness. Most of all, he's dead to me."

  "Kill him yourself."

  "I am weak in comparison to him. He would sense my hovering about him. He'd destroy me the next time."

  "You've already had a confrontation with him."

  Marie's fingers kneaded the silk skirt.

  "I no longer know why he allows me to exist."

  "Perhaps he, too, is afraid of what Liliana would think."

  "No. He is egocentric enough to believe that she would forgive him. And I believe that too."

  "I think you are wrong about your granddaughter."

  Marie shook her head.

  "You must see them together. Yes, they argue, but there's a magnetism between them from which neither can withdraw. He needs her youth. She is a kind of mojo for him. A good-luck charm that he keeps near."

  "And what is he to her?"

  "Her father..."

  "Then he's not her uncle?"

  "He's uncle, father. They share a deeper bonding of blood than you can understand now."

  "She's your blood relation also."

  The worrying of the material of her dress intensified.

  "No, we both share his blood. It gives him a power over us. I do not even know whether I could destroy him." Marie raised her hand. "I touch his body and I feel the hardness of gold. The softness of down. He protects and punishes. His smell is sometimes with me even when he is not present. His voice wakes me from my sleep.

  "I don't know how to free myself from him. I need your help, Wil." Marie moved closer to the table on which Wil lay. "He has no hold over you." Marie reached out her hands and touched Wil's body. "He has no hold over you." Her hands followed the curves of his pectorals, smoothed over his abdomen, and gently touched his penis, gliding her palm up and down the tender skin.

  Wil's breathing increased. The muscles in his thighs twitched, calming only for a moment. Her lips kissed the tip of his penis as her fingers played the flesh.

  "You'll help me, Wil, won't you?" Her tongue rounded the tip of his organ before she took him fully into her mouth.

  His abdominal muscles pumped. He caught his breath in fragments, gulping down the air that had been sucked into his mouth.

  Her right hand stretched across his body, fingers grabbing at the jewelry piercing his nipples.

  When the throbbing started, she freed him from her mouth and nipped at his thigh, finally taking a bite, sucking the open wound.

  Chapter 48

  Daisies sprinkled the front lawn of Sade's house, daisies and some pretty yellow weeds that Cecelia couldn't name. She remembered loving their colorful show every year since she had been a child of five. Before Sade, another family had lived in the house. A big family, she recalled, one with many pets and several rather wild children. Cecelia's mother had worked for that family, and when they sold the house, they recommended her mother to Sade as a housekeeper.

  Cecelia followed her mother to the front door of Sade's house. The door was made of wormy wood on which hung a green-tinged brass knocker in the shape of a large bird. She had never been able to guess what kind of bird, but as she drew closer, the detail of the bill, the brassy feathers ruffling the head, and the spread of the wings hinted that perhaps it was not just one species of bird, but a composite of several.

  She sniffed the air. Something had died recently; not a large animal, perhaps a bird or maybe a baby rabbit. Cecelia looked over her shoulder at the expanse of green, white, and yellow lawn and saw a speck of brownish-grey at the foot of an old tree. Sniffing the air, she knew that speck caused the stink. From where she stood next to her mother, the speck seemed to be a baby bird, one that a nasty sibling had displaced. Cecelia had no siblings and had never wanted any, else she too might have had to find a way to eject the intruder from their home.

  Her mother fingered the ring of keys she carried, searching for the correct key to open Sade's door. The tinkle of the keys hitting each other hurt Cecelia's ears, and the mélange of odors emitted from the keys made her wriggle her nose. Mingled with the keys own metallic odor were the smell of soiled diapers, lasagna, bleach, newsprint, and her mother's own sweaty palms; all swam through the air. But above all was the odor of clay and dirt--the unusual odors that emanated from Sade. The closer she became to him, the more she noticed the odors. Soil never marred his fingernails or stained his white skin, but the suffocating stink of the earth encased his body. She had never asked why, even though she knew he did not work the soil as a laborer or a hobbyist.

  The click of the lock pulled Cecelia away from her thoughts. Her mother opened the door wide and preceded her daughter into the house. As Cecelia crossed the threshold, she noted Sade's earthy perfume, but it was faint, left from earlier in the day. The air didn't quiver in excitement; instead a calm shimmered lackadaisically in the air, taking advantage of the pause Sade's absence allowed.

  Just as well he isn't here, she thought. He hadn't wanted her to come to the house anymore, probably because he feared that anyone seeing them together would immediately suspect the relationship. But she secretly liked being back, even though she had whined all the way here. Today her mother needed her help washing the rugs. She had been happy to comply, but didn't want Sade to know, so she grumbled at her mother and insisted that she'd rather be with Joey. Ugh! Joey! A child, a clumsy child smelling of licorice and soda. A vision of Joey chewing like a cow on one of his licorice sticks made her sneer.

  "Try to put on a better face. You wouldn't want Liliana to be offended, child," her mother warned.

  Sade's niece offended Cecelia. The closeness Liliana shared with her uncle, the measured spans of time Liliana spent in her uncle's presence. Most irritating of all was the secret uncle and niece kept. Cecelia didn't know the secret yet, but hoped that she would someday. Confidently Cecelia believed that she could replace Liliana. Someday in a crowd he would step aside with Cecelia and whisper and speak in covert language as he now did with Liliana.

  "Cecelia, I'm so glad you're back," said Liliana.

  "Answer her," Matilda softly urged.

  "Where's your uncle?"

  "What kind of a question is that? I'm sorry, Ms. Plissay. Cecelia has been acting rather strange for the past month. She needs to spend more time at home and less running around with her friends."

  "At Cecelia's age friends are very important." Liliana smiled as she excused Cecelia's behavior.

  "Certainly not more important than spending time with her family," Matilda said. "Come, we'll start with the rug in the living room."

  "Oh, no. Please don't lift that. We can have a professional clean it," Liliana pleaded.

  "Been doing rugs for years. I can assure you I'll do a better job than some stranger."

  "Besides, Louis doesn't like having strangers in the house," Cecelia interrupted.

  "How dare you get so personal, young lady? That's Mr. Sade. Do you understand?"

  Cecelia nodded her head at her mother.

  "I'm very sorry Ms. Plissay. This is the first time I ever heard her use your uncle's first name."

  Cecelia felt Liliana's eyes peering at her, memorizing something. She turned her face away and hurried her mother into the living room.

  She hadn't remembered how ornate the room appeared. The stone fireplace mantel was covered with seventeenth-century bisque figurines interspersed with silver-framed daguerreotypes of beautiful women dressed in period clothing.

  "First of all, you'll have to help me move the furniture. Cecelia, Cecelia, are you paying attention?"

  "Who do you suppose these women are, Mom?" Cecelia fingered a filigreed frame.

  "Unless you're going to dust them, don't touch them. Come over here and help me move this chair."


  The arms of the chair were made of unupholstered wood. Cecelia walked over to the chair to run the palm of her hand across the polished wood. The rest of the chair was upholstered in gold cloth, small purple fleurs-de-lis spotting the material.

  "Do you suppose the chair's an antique?"

  "What's wrong with you, Cecelia? You're acting like this is the first time you've seen any of these objects."

  "First time up close," Cecelia answered.

  "I've had you help me clean this room many times, dear. Just that your mind was always elsewhere. Here, lift, for heaven's sake."

  Each took an arm of the chair and moved it off the Aubusson rug. The underside of the arm Cecelia touched had several nicks. She could feel how they had been smoothed over and waxed.

  Cecelia brushed her shoe across a frayed portion of the tapestry-like rug. She was about to squat and study the colors of the rug, but her mother interrupted, asking for help with the love seat. Although upholstered in the same fabric as the chair, the love seat had a dingy, faded look, and as she drew closer, she noticed the heavy scent of soil. Sade must spend many hours here, she thought, while running the back of her hand across the seat. She smiled. The skin on her hand stung and almost sparked as the crackle caught her mother's attention.

  "Are you all right?"

  Cecelia nodded dreamily, preparing to seat herself on the love seat.

  "What are you doing? We just got here, and you want to take a rest. I'm going to take you to the doctor and find out why you're behaving so lethargically."

  The house suddenly came alive. The air vibrated, the furnishings seemed to shiver and the nick-knacks trembled; but nothing moved.

  He is in the house, Cecelia reasoned, instantly looking toward the entrance of the room.

  "Uncle, try to talk Matilda out of doing such heavy work."

  Cecelia strained to hear his voice. Whispers, garbled whispers that hinted at annoyance. He knew. He had scented her without being told. The girl willed her mentor to come to her. Instead he seemed to draw away from her, separating himself into another dimension, one she had not yet entered.

  "Ah! Madame! My niece told me of your plans. How silly. We do not expect you to do the heavy housework. We will call in several husky men to wash and hang the rugs."

  He appeared as a vision haloed by the musk of the outdoors.

  "But you don't like having strangers in the house," said Cecelia.

  Had she truly spoken? She could not be sure, since Sade did not deign to reply nor even look at her. Her breathing stopped momentarily as she leaned the top half of her body toward him. Should she wave her arms? Should she rip off her clothes? Should she lay prostrate before him awaiting his wishes?

  "But, Mr. Sade, I'm paid to clean the house and run errands. Lord knows I really don't have much in the way to clean here. You and your niece are quite tidy. Wish I could say that about my own family." Cecelia felt her mother's eyes fix on her.

  Sade took her mother's hands in his and kissed the back of each.

  "Madame, you are too delicate to ruin your dainty doigts." Sade brushed his lips across her mother's fingers. Her mother's face flushed a deeper red than Cecelia had ever seen before. "Take the afternoon off, madame, and enjoy the après-midi."

  "Yes, my uncle is right. You've been working too hard, Matilda. You and your daughter should do something together."

  Cecelia wanted to speak but found her mouth to be parched; her throat felt closed, knotted. An attempt to clear her throat brought on a raging bout of coughing. Her mother hurried the girl into the kitchen for a glass of water that the girl, racked by the hacking cough, spilled on herself.

  "I think we should go home. Perhaps a nap would help."

  "Cecelia," called Liliana. "Cecelia, are you all right?" Liliana entered the kitchen. Immediately she pulled out a stool and forced Cecelia to sit. "Go home," Liliana whispered in the girl's ear. "Go home and don't come back. Don't allow my uncle to win."

  Matilda could not hear the words, because they were said privately in a voice only sensitive hears could hear.

  I will win, Cecelia kept repeating inside her head. I will win over you, Liliana. I will have your uncle.

  The coughing stopped, but Cecelia's voice did not return immediately. He had silenced her, she knew, and probably would not allow her to speak again until she left his home, a home she intended to make her own.

  Chapter 49

  "Release her, Uncle."

  "Who, ma chère?"

  "Cecelia. You are stealing her life like you did mine."

  "Mais non; I made a terrible mistake with you by taking you all at once instead of having you slowly get used to the changes."

  "You offer nothing to her except isolation."

  "Mais, she would be with us. Never alone. Always desired."

  "Until you tire of her."

  "I have never tired of you, ma chère, even though you can be quite a tiresome bore."

  "Uncle, I've been to the local cemetery."

  "Visiting some neighbors?"

  "They do exist."

  "Neighbors?"

  "The malformed. The mindless vampires who are more ghoulish than we are."

  "Des goules? Nous? Enfant, you haven't looked in the mirror; there is nothing de goule about us."

  "The way we live is ghoulish. Drinking blood to survive is ghoulish."

  "And what about eating meat? What about the merveilleux steak tartare served in the best of restaurants? Thin ribbons of succulent beef lying raw on some sophisticate's plate. Or the blood puddings you used to delight in as a child? Ah! Mais a better analogy may be small babies suckling at their mothers' breasts. Gaining life by taking from the mother. Just as a fetus does. We are born predators, mon enfant, born to diminish the already living so that we may grow."

  "Stop it!" Liliana screamed. "How could you compare us to the innocents?"

  "Innocents? Those mewling, wet, whining, writhing, spitting savages that grow into repulsive teens and abusive adults?" Sade dusted a fleck from his black linen shirt. "Besides, we give far more forethought to our food than either the enfants or the poor wretches in the cemetery."

  "What if Cecelia should end up like those things in the cemetery?"

  "She will if I abandon her now." Sade sat on the love seat and pulled off his biker boots to rest his feet on the rug.

  "You mean those creatures were never taken completely through the changes?"

  "A guess on my part. However, she is already highly sensitive to the world around her. I feed her need for blood from my very own veins." He unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt and rolled up his sleeves to show her his arms. No marks. There would be none. He would heal quickly. All she saw were the bulging veins running up the inside of both his arms. No doubt he had recently fed. "I share like a nursing mother, suffering the twinges of pain for the tiny young one."

  "Dammit, Uncle. You're no martyr. How much pain must she suffer until you are satisfied? What wounds does she carry with her from day to day? What scars from your hand embellish her child-like skin?"

  "Mon enfant, I hate scars. Non, non, that kind of play must wait until she is immortal like us." He smiled. "Then she will heal quickly and be able to endure far more... playtime."

  "Stop what you're doing to this girl."

  "I've already told you. It has gone too far too turn back. Her mort is assured." He reached out to grab Liliana's left wrist, but she pulled away. "Ah! Don't be jealous, mon enfant, you will always be the special one."

  "Jealous of a girl who is dying? You don't know me, Uncle. I don't envy anyone who must live as I do."

  Sade bit down on his right wrist. Blood spurted from the full veins. He stood and walked toward Liliana.

  She felt herself cowering, moving back from the advancing steps he took, but she couldn't prevent her retreat. He reached out his right arm, and the smell of his blood fogged her mind until she realized he held her fast in the vice of his hand. She could feel the warm blood stain her scalp.

/>   "Remember the taste, ma chère. Have you forgotten the sweetness of my blood? The strength my blood once gave to you? Mais non, I see the memory in your eyes. Replenish that memory now." Sade loosened his grip on her hair and brought his wrist to her mouth, spreading the crimson across her lips.

  He had practically drained her while he had held her in his arms. His soft voice spoke of eternal life, of the exhilaration of intensified senses. The colors sounded beautiful. The sounds seemed so intense. His touch had soothed her fear, and the taste of his blood had been a salvation.

  Liliana again found herself enveloped in her uncle's arms, sucking at the blood that dribbled from his wrist. She lapped at the rivulets running up his arm; the color, deeper in hue than the animal blood she survived on, caused myriad dreams to rush through her alert mind.

  Stuart's arm again stretched out above the water. The veins pulsed wildly, excited by her presence. Her hand smoothed over his flesh, testing the depth of the purple network feeding his arm. She moved closer to him. The water cooled her feet and drenched the bottom of her dress so that the material hugged her legs. Her lips kissed his flesh before her fangs bit down.

  A slap across her cheek laid her on the floor, Sade standing over her, rebuking her for her hunger.

  "It's what you want. You've always wanted to share our blood like the first time." Liliana ripped away the collar from her blouse. "Take my blood and allow me to feed from you."

  Sade stood over his niece. His face remained placid, unmoved by her pain.

  "I want more than that, Liliana. I want you as a woman."

  He squeezed his wrist, and she watched as the blood dripped down upon her face. A drop touched her upper lip, another smeared her cheek, another she caught with her tongue.

  Frenzied, she tore at her clothes, shredded the silk and lace that had lain close against her body. Instead she would invite her uncle to lie upon her skin.

  The outer world had disappeared, or perhaps it never had existed, only the image of her uncle stripping slowly, leisurely, aware of the famine that drove her.

  He knelt next to her, and she grabbed at his bloodied wrist, but he held her face just above the wound. She smelled his blood and tasted the remnants on her tongue.